Black inventors in spotlight
Vol. 17, No. 19Feb. 12, 1998

Black inventors in spotlight

The Black Inventors Exhibit," celebrating the inventions of persons of African descent, will be on display in two locations at the University in late February.

The exhibit can be viewed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Friday, Feb. 27, in Multipurpose Rooms A-C in the Trabant University Center, and again from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Saturday, Feb. 28, in the Rodney Room of the Perkins Student Center.

Free and open to the public, the exhibition is a collection of nearly 100 real inventions, ranging from a portable cell phone to the traffic light and the automatic gear shift. Numerous patent designs, personal letters and brief biographies of inventors also are on display.

The exhibition is the work of Jamie Ince, a former black book fair coordinator, who combed university libraries and patent depositories to find items for the display.

"The mission is to develop racial pride, to promote racial understanding and provide a new motivation for learning. We intend to inspire young people to have visions and conceive ideas," he said.

Actor Glen Turman hosts, Making It Happen, Master of Invention, a video that runs concurrent with the exhibition. The program uses a wealth of archive footage to document the creativity and achievement of African Americans in the fields of engineering, science, communications, health care, agriculture, transportation and manufacturing.

The UD display is sponsored by the Black Student Union, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the National Society of Black Engineering.

For additional information, call the Black Student Union at 831-2801.